Graffiti

This colorful kiddie ride comes courtesy of gleeful art prankster Banksy, an artist well known for his graffiti and politically charged installations. In his most recent creation, the artist transformed a coin-operated ride into a searing statement against the BP oil spill.

“That’s the beauty of the whole project” says Pace chuckling maniacally at the thought. “We have had council guys in police cars stop us in the middle of the day while we are working and asking us if we have been commissioned to do this and when we answered no, they gave us thumbs up and said keep doing what you are doing.”

“Our work” he adds, “merely highlights how siff (a derivative of the word syphilis and popular Durban colloquialism for ‘disgusting’) these city walls are.”

While law enforcers and municipalities have no legal grounds to stop reverse graffiti they are, it seems, overly eager to eliminate evidence of their neglect by swiftly painting over the murals.

Ironically, such actions makes these walls ideal targets for taggers to leave more permanent stains.

“The art on the walls draws attention to their states of neglect” confirms Pace. “Municipalities don’t recognise the worth of our art and simply end up painting over them. Of course a concrete wall is porous, so the enamel of spray paint doesn’t take so well but white-paint on the other hand just seals it. So really they just shoot themselves in the foot every time they decide to remove of our pain-staking scrubbings.”

There’s a fun exhibit that just closed in the Netherlands called How to Save the World in 10 Days. Rather than instantly transforming our planet to a heavenly glowing utopia, the festival instead presented an overview of worldwide cultural and artistic efforts to defend the planet from impending doom.

The artworks ranged from bikes made of car parts to emergency shelters, from reverse graffiti to car condoms. That last one involved actually sliding a condom over a car tailpipe, then watching it balloon up and sputter away. Worked practically for a minute, then served mostly as comic relief.

A performance that seemed to encapsulate the essence of the ish was the performance “Environmental Health Clinic.” The artist set up a booth in the center of a busy intersection and encouraged visitors to sit and unload their environmental concerns. She then would offer guidance, reassurance, and action tips. Environmentalism as a primary means for assuaging fears. How to Save the World was up at Vooiruit in Gent. Thanks to we make money not art.

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